no-autoplay-audio

Ensure that audio or video elements are not played automatically on a webpage for more than three seconds.

Description

When an audio component plays automatically in a webpage, users of screen readers find it difficult to comprehend the screen reader’s output. The no-autoplay-audio flags any audio or video (which might include audio) component that plays automatically for more than three seconds.

Success criteria

For this accessibility check to pass, your website, ideally, must not use autoplaying audio or video components. If the autoplay feature is unavoidable, the file should stop playing within three seconds. All audio or video components must have an option to pause, control volume, or stop playing the file.

Example

In the following example, the autoplay attribute is used to make the video play automatically when the website loads. This approach can cause difficulty for users dependent on screen readers to access the contents of the webpage. Hence, this code snippet breaks the no-autoplay-audio rule.

In contrast, the following code snippet does not use the autoplay attribute.

Hence, this code snippet doesn’t break the no-autoplay-audio rule.

How to fix?

You can follow these options to fix issues if this rule gets flagged:

• Remove the autoplay attribute.
• Stop autoplaying the file in three seconds and include easy options to stop, control audio, and pause the file.

Reference

• WCAG 1.4.2: Audio Control
• W3C - Audio/Video elements that plays automatically
• WCAG - Audio Controlsl